Canals

Photo by Bill PetersPanorama of destruction: a canal in Holyoke, as viewed by the bridge near our office

It's beautiful-ugly season in Holyoke. The canals were drained this week, and every morning, when I drive over the Connecticut River to come to work, the river is at full flood, water exploding over the entire dam wall, reaching half the height of the trees at the base of the river.

A brief history and description of the Holyoke Canal system is here. Last September, Josh took some additional pictures, which largely resemble the one above. The debris is in the same place as it was six months ago. If nothing else, it's a nice reminder that nothing has changed. To that end, here's a link to an article Greg wrote about the Holyoke canals a very long time ago.

I grew up in Rochester, New York, in a town through which the Erie Canal ran. The canal was drained in the winter. Though there were urban legends that a farmer dumped cows into the Erie Canal, generally, you find three things at the bottom of canals: tires, bikes, and shopping carts. These three items are, apparently, the only three items that lend themselves to a procedure of theft, joyriding, and then, in a spasm of outrage at the source of transportation, canal-tossing. Occasionally, a car ends up in a canal too.

I'm blogging this from Rochester today. Since the winter in Rochester was mild this year, the Erie Canal was only partially drained. Below the ice are shopping carts, a tire, part of a plastic rowing oar I'd once snapped off. Above the ice is a pylon I used to jump off of when I was much younger, and didn't mind the occasional suspicious rash on my leg that visibly looked like it was doing something to my body. Here's a photo (of the pylon):

Photo by Bill PetersThe pylon.

And, here's a close-up. If you look closely, you can see: a few ladder steps on the left, nailed to the pillars; a cable, tied around the thing for whatever reason; boards nailed to the top of the pylon; a wooden box nailed to those boards, apparently, for extra height; at the bottom, sharp, blade-like fungi apparently growing on the pillars:

Miles to the right of the pylon was Lyndon Bridge, which ran over the Erie Canal and, eventually, to Lyndon Field, where I played little league. Lyndon Bridge has been rebuilt, but for years, the bridge was closed to traffic, rusted through, dried up, scabbed over. The bridge had four height levels off of which you could jump: Base, Rail, X, and Span. I got as high as X, or, rather, the point at which the two diagonal beams intersected below the peak of the bridge's arch. Span was the Holy Grail of scum jumps -- that meant jumping from the highest point of the bridge.

Since there are no photos to be taken of the bridge's original form, here's a video of Lyndon Bridge, recorded over a decade ago on Channel 12, Fairport's Public Access Station. The program shown above was run by a bunch of kids who were as bored as I was when I lived there. The kid in the sketch is about to jump Rail.

Anyway, back to your regularly-scheduled local canal desolation:

Photo by Greg Saulmon. | Click to enlarge.The shot we can't stop taking: the view from Lyman Street, with Local Buzz HQ on the right.

Photo by Greg Saulmon. | Click to enlarge.The bed of the canal, from Lyman Street.